The right path should be built right the first time

West Alabama bike lane provides lessons in poor government planning.

Copyright 2015: Houston Chronicle

Published 6:39 pm, Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Staff

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Robert Rios sets down his bicycle in a silent protest for 4 minutes outside City Hall to remind motorist to share the road with cyclists on Tuesday, June 23, 2015, in Houston. ( Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle ) less

Robert Rios sets down his bicycle in a silent protest for 4 minutes outside City Hall to remind motorist to share the road with cyclists on Tuesday, June 23, 2015, in Houston. ( Mayra Beltran / Houston ... more

Photo: Mayra Beltran, Staff

The right path should be built right the first time

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Right now, Houston's bicycle infrastructure investment looks like a one-way street in the right direction, but there's been plenty of twists and turns along the way.

The city recently announced plans to build a bike lane along West Alabama Street from Wesleyan Street east toward Chenevert Street. This path will provide a key east-west corridor from the Greenway Plaza area with Midtown. Once completed it will link B-Cycle bike rental stations on Montrose and at the Menil Gallery. It will also connect with a north-south bike lane on Wesleyan. However, this is a path that Houston has ridden down before.

Back in 2000, the city restriped a 2.5-mile stretch of West Alabama to provide a bike lane on each side of the road. Despite spending $154,000 on the project, cyclists largely avoided the lanes because they were often filled with broken glass, debris and rutted pavement. When the street was finally repaved about three years later, the city removed the bike lanes as part of a scheme to accommodate traffic during the reconstruction of the Southwest Freeway and Spur 527 to downtown. What should have been the first step toward creating a better citywide bike system ended up in the city's trash heap - along with wasted tax dollars.

The lesson for the city: Build it right the first time.

Currently the city has proposed two different designs for the new West Alabama bike path: either two on-street bike lanes or a single off-street shared path for cyclists and pedestrians. Whatever the end result looks like, it should have cyclists moving with traffic while keeping them safe. The bike paths should also link into a greater transit network.

Riding a bike down Houston streets can feel like driving a car along a Formula One racetrack. Like the divider between the feeder road and the freeway, separating motor vehicles from people on bikes and pedestrians is key to a good design. As Houston learned 15 years ago, a mere paint job won't get the job done. A bike lane that feels unsafe and isn't maintained will be a bike lane that folks avoid. Build it right and taxpayers won't be asked to pay again later.

That's a lesson that should also be applied to the funding mechanism behind the West Alabama bike lane. In addition to City Hall, the bike lanes will also be constructed by Upper Kirby and Midtown Houston, both of which are supported by tax increment reinvestment zones. These zones, or TIRZes, allow appointed boards to collect and spend taxpayer dollars instead of sending them to our elected officials at City Hall.

Like coming back to redo a bike lane, each additional TIRZ means that taxpayers have to spend money on something they've already built. Three government bodies means three different bureaucracies, three sets of contracts and three ways for consultants to get paid - all of which comes at taxpayer expense. Houston could save money by eliminating these TIRZes and getting the business of government done through City Hall. However, the revenue cap prevents Houston's elected government from collecting taxpayer dollars. So instead, we're stuck relying on TIRZ boards to build necessary infrastructure.

Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States and we should be able to provide transit options that meet the diverse wants and needs of our population. Cycling is the simplest, safest, cleanest way to get around. In a city clogged by gridlock, bikes provide a way out of traffic. They don't pollute and in fact help people live healthier lives. For too long we've built a city by the measure of a car. It is time to start building on the scale of people, and it is crucial that we get it right.